Sally Owen created the Environmental Treasures of Quincy program 14 years ago. It took her that many years to find someone qualified to give a tour of St. Mary’s Cemetery in West Quincy.

Owen asked Quincy resident Stephen Cantelli to lead Saturday’s tour, which took participants through St. Mary’s Cemetery, Hall Place, and to the site of the country’s first blast furnace.

“It took me a long time, almost 14 years, to find someone who knew about this cemetery, and he does,” Owen said.

Cantelli is a retired social studies teacher.

“I’ve always been interested in Quincy history, and when I taught social studies, I got the kids interested in Quincy history as well,” Cantelli said.

Cantelli was the chairperson of the Quincy Granite Workers Memorial that was erected 19 years ago. His work on the memorial led to his extensive knowledge of the cemetery.

“When I was doing work for the monument, we asked people that wanted to buy a brick to tell us about their family,” Cantelli said. “After I got everything together, I would come into the cemetery and find them.”

Cantelli guided more than 50 people through the cemetery on Saturday. He pointed out the different types of granite used to carve tombstones and told stories about some of the buried people.

Allen and Diane MacLeod of Braintree have attended three of the program’s tours.

“We enjoyed hearing the history of the blast furnace and civil war heroes buried in the cemetery, which we didn’t know about,” Allen MacLeod said.

Johanna DiLorenzo and her mother Marjorie DiLorenzo of Medfield also attended the tour.

“We’ve been doing tours with Sally now for more than 10 years,” Johanna DiLorenzo said. “I didn’t know how many influential people are in this cemetery, it blew me away.”

The next Environmental Treasures program event, hotels of Houghs Neck, is at 7 p.m. on Nov. 7 at the Thomas Crane Public Library.